Early results from the largest election in the world show India’s opposition leader Narendra Modi has won a landslide victory to become the country’s new prime minister. Modi is the leader of the BJP, a Hindu nationalist party. "This is the result that the corporations in India wanted," says Siddhartha Deb, Indian author and journalist, noting that Modi "is very a pro-development politician, which basically means pro-business." Deb adds that Modi served as the chief minister of Gujarat, where anti-Muslim riots in 2002 left at least a thousand people dead. After the bloodshed, the U.S. State Department revoked Modi’s visa. Modi has never apologized for or explained his actions at the time of the riots. Deb’s recent article in The Guardian is "India’s Dynasty-Dominated Politics Has No Space for Dissent" and his nonfiction book is "The Beautiful and the Damned: A Portrait of the New India."

We look at the firing of Jill Abramson, the first female executive editor of The New York Times in its 160-year history, who had reportedly complained about earning less pay than her male predecessors. This apparently amplified unattributed characterizations that Abramson’s management style was "brusque" and "pushy," which critics took issue with since similar behavior from men in similar roles is often accepted, and even encouraged. "Jill put many, many women in top positions and was a role model for the younger women and all women at The New York Times," says our guest Lynn Povich, who was the first female senior editor in Newsweek’s history. "We know how upset they are to see the way in which she was dismissed." Povich also discusses the status of women in the media, which she helped shape when she led a lawsuit in 1970 against Newsweek for hiring women only as researchers, and rarely promoting them to reporter or editor. Following a victory in the case, women working at Time, Reader’s Digest, The New York Times, NBC and the Associated Press also sued their employers. Povich recounts the story in her book, "The Good Girls Revolt: How the Women of Newsweek Sued Their Bosses and Changed the Workplace." Since leaving Newsweek in 1991, she has been editor-in-chief of Working Woman magazine and managing editor/senior executive producer for MSNBC.com.

After news that dozens of U.S. veterans died during long waits for medical treatment, Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki testified Thursday before a Senate committee about treatment delays and cover-ups at VA medical centers. The committee grilled him about recent claims that VA health clinics in Phoenix, Arizona, and Fort Collins, Colorado, used elaborate schemes to hide records of patients who waited too long for care, and suggested the problems may lead to a criminal investigation. We get reaction from Aaron Glantz, who covers veterans and domestic military issues for the Center for Investigative Reporting. We also speak with a VA whistleblower who says he was removed from his position as chief of psychiatry at a VA hospital in St. Louis after reporting unethical workplace conduct. Dr. Jose Mathews says he was demoted to the hospital’s basement where he now works on compensation and pension exams. He is joined by his attorney Ariel Solomon.

Amy Goodman with Denis Moynihan — What price would you pay not to kill another human being? At what point would you commit the offenses allegedly perpetrated by Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, who was charged Wednesday with desertion and “misbehavior before an enemy?”